Despite the high oil prices, growth in energy demand will continue globally, but there is need to reorient the approach in meeting the challenge, Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Murli Deora said on Sunday.
The capacity constraints across hydrocarbon supply chain were causing a major concern for global supply, Deora said while addressing a high level ministerial conference at the 10th International Energy Forum in Doha.
Referring to the increase in oil prices from around $12 per barrel to $75 per barrel in the last 6-7 years, Deora said the price rise would fuel innovations in the sector that could solve the issues of energy supply and efficiency.
Fossil fuels would continue to be an important economic driver in the next 25 years as its replacement with alternatives would take decades and R&D investment towards it would be $200-400 billion annually for next 20 years, an official release quoted Deora as saying.
The minister also stressed for synergy between oil producers and consumers, between the developed nations and emerging economies and between various forms of energy as means to bring about global energy security.
Praising the way the challenge posed by the rising global demand has been tackled, Deora said advances such as major hydrocarbon findings helped deal with the situation. In future, technology could increase oil recovery from existing reservoirs as much of the huge gas reserves still remained untapped, he noted.
Technology improvements would also help unearth alternative sources of energy and investments were being made towards developing them, Deora said.
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